Tom came in, followed by Conan, and surveyed the diner with a dispassionate look. Only a dozen people, in all, and all of them eating. "I think table six and eight could use coffee warm-ups," he told Conan, and instinctively looked around for Kyrie, because Kyrie was usually very good with refilling people's coffee and it wasn't like her to ignore the need for warm-ups. He found her and Rafiel behind the counter, at the point they were furthest from the customers at the table. Facing them was . . . He felt his mouth fall open, and the dragon struggle within, attempting to make him shift into his bigger, more aggressive form.
He'd come here, as they'd feared he'd come. He'd come here and tried to . . . He didn't even know what Dire was trying to do, but he was talking to Rafiel and Kyrie, and it seemed to Tom that if this creature was talking to Rafiel and Kyrie, then it must have them under some kind of mind control, because it was impossible that his friends had taken such complete leave of their senses as to listen to him like that. Wasn't it? Shouldn't it be?
He ducked rapidly under the counter, to the other side, and started towards them, but Keith grabbed his arm. "No use, old friend," he said. "That's a conference for non-dragon shifters only. I'm excluded because the bastard says I'm ephemeral, whatever that means. And you're excluded because you're the Great Sky Dragon's pet and the old bastard doesn't want to start a war. Is this the creature who fought you, outside the aquarium? He didn't seem so afraid of causing a war then."
"No," Tom said. "He didn't."
Conan, who had ducked behind the counter also, and was putting his apron on, said, "But then he didn't know Himself was protecting you personally."
Tom bit his tongue, so as not to tell Conan what Himself could do with his personal protection. He suspected if he were to name the exact unlikely anatomical feat he would like to see the Great Sky Dragon perform, it would only cause poor Conan to become speechless. Possibly forever. He couldn't even say the creature's name. How could he possibly hope to resist him? So, instead, he said, "And?" to Keith, instead of to Conan.
Keith shrugged. "He's apparently issuing some sort of warning to them about my kind and your kind, or whatever. He says he's a policeman, so perhaps he thinks he's Rafiel's colleague."
It was clear to Tom that Keith was offended at being kept out of the conference and he wanted to tell him that this was a fraternity he should count himself greatly lucky to be excluded from—that it was better to be excluded than to be claimed by old, amoral creatures. And he was sure if he said it, it would have no more effect than to have told his young, bereft self that it was better to be kicked out of the house with exactly a bathrobe to his name than to be handed over to a criminal, or at best an extra-legal organization by doting and dutiful parents.
So instead he turned, to rummage under the counter. He found his boots there, and wondered whether Rafiel or Kyrie had taken care of that. He put them on, laced them, then put his apron on. Conan was already among the tables, giving warm-ups and taking other orders, or drawing tickets. But he kept looking over his shoulder at Tom, as if afraid Tom was about to do something stupid.
And Tom, who felt a great roil of anger boiling at the pit of his stomach, looked at the three people talking. Talking, as if this were a perfectly normal social occasion, talking as though the dire wolf hadn't tried to kill them just moments before. In the shower, he'd washed and disinfected a wound, halfway up his calf, caused by the monster's teeth. He was sane enough to realize that the creature could have hurt him much worse. It could have bitten his head off. It could have dismembered them all. It could have closed its teeth on his calf, and now Tom would presumably be growing a new foot, just like Conan was growing a new arm, just like . . . But this wasn't rational. This wasn't even sane. He looked at that creature—who showed no sign of their pitched battle—talking to Kyrie, and he wanted to grab another meat-tenderizing hammer and a fresh skewer and renew the wounds he was sure he had made on that impassive, inhuman face.